Humble Pie (band)
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Humble Pie (band) |
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| Background information | ||
| Origin |  England |
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| Genre(s) | Rock Hard Rock Blues Rock |
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| Years active | 1969 – 1975 | |
| Label(s) | Immediate |
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| Website | http://www.humble-pie.net/ | |
| Former members | ||
| Steve
Marriott Peter Frampton Clem Clempson Greg Ridley Jerry Shirley |
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Humble Pie was a British
hard
rock band and one of the first rock and roll supergroups,
featuring Steve Marriott of The
Small Faces, Peter Frampton of The Herd, and Greg
Ridley of Spooky Tooth. Influenced by American
blues and soul, they developed a
blues-rock sound that proved influential to legions of subsequent hard
rock and heavy
metal bands.
They were best known for their hard-rocking
Contents
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The band initially consisted of Steve Marriott (formerly of The Small Faces: lead singer, guitarist, keyboardist), Peter Frampton (from Herd: lead guitarist, lead singer), Greg Ridley (from Spooky Tooth: bassist and vocalist) and Jerry Shirley (from Valkyrie: drummer).
In late 1968, Frampton was eager to escape The Herd, as well as his teeny-bopper image. The young guitar prodigy played on a Small Faces recording session in France that year and had become close friends with Marriott, who himself was becoming frustrated with creative restrictions. The Small Faces' frontman suggested a drummer for Frampton — Shirley, whom he'd known for several years, most notably through his work with the mod band Apostolic Intervention.
Nothing really came of the project, though, until New Year's Eve 1968. Marriott walked offstage during a disastrous Small Faces gig, rang Frampton at his home later that night and asked if he and Ridley could join his new band. Humble Pie was born.
Because the members had all previously played in high-profile groups, many viewed Humble Pie as a "supergroup," although the band loathed the term and the expectations that came with it. They started secretly rehearsing at Marriott's home in Moreton, Essex (Beehive Cottage) in early 1969. The objective was to hone the act away from media and public scrutiny. After signing with Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records, the band had planned to launch its first single and album in the spring, but were delayed after an injunction was filed by The Herd's management.
Eventually, Humble Pie released their debut single
"Natural Born Bugie" in July 1969. It was a No. 4 hit in
the UK Singles Chart, and was quickly
followed by the album,
Their second album,
Recent tape archives show the band recorded around 30 songs in its first nine months of existence, many of which remained unreleased for decades — including a cover of Ray Charles' classic "Drown In My Own Tears." Humble Pie concerts at this time featured an acoustic set — with a radical re-working of Graham Gouldman's "For Your Love" as its centerpiece — followed by an electric set, an approach that would become popular decades later.
The winter of 1970 saw the collapse of Immediate, a switch to
While these moves would improve the band's commercial standing in the States, they were blows to Frampton, who had been building up confidence and material as a songwriter.
The group's first album for A&M,
A newly confident group released its most confident record to
date,
Frampton, whose influence as co-leader of the group had been co-opted by Anthony's makeover, had left the band by the time the album was released and went on to enjoy massive popularity as a solo artist.
With Dave "Clem" Clempson replacing
Frampton, Humble Pie moved towards an even harder sound emphasizing
Marriott's blues and soul roots. Their first record with Clempson was
Looking for a more authentic
After the leaner, more focused Thunderbox (1974) and Street Rats (1975) — a patchwork of studio recordings that were, by and large, intended for a Marriott solo album — the group found themselves running out of steam creatively and bickering internally. The Pie staged the 'Goodbye Pie Tour' in 1975 and broke up.
In 1980 Marriott revived Humble Pie with Shirley, adding Bob Tench (from Jeff Beck Group) on guitar and Anthony "Sooty" Jones on bass. Two albums were released but the effort soon fell apart.
In 1991 Marriott and Frampton began collaborating again, with another Humble Pie rebirth possibly in the offing, but on 21 April a house fire took Marriott's life before anything could materialise. Two recorded songs from this collaboration, "The Bigger They Come", and "I Won't Let You Down", with Steve Marriott on vocals, appear on Peter Frampton's album Shine On.
Before the collaboration between Frampton and Marriott,
drummer Jerry Shirley reformed the
group with a different assortment of musicians. This project was called
A myriad of other musicians were in and out of the band for
the next ten years, and the group was able to develop a loyal following
as a live act. Huhn's vocal style was quite similar to Steve
Marriott, which allowed for a certain level of authenticity,
but
Shirley agreed to disband his version of the group in 1991 when it appeared that a reunion featuring Frampton and Marriott would happen, but since Marriott's untimely death, he carried on with his performances. Jerry Shirley moved back to England toward the end of the '90's, disbanding his version of "The Pie", and now owns all legal rights to the name.
Shirley has participated in a few reunions with original Humble Pie members in the last few years, including an appearance at the Steve Marriott Tribute Concert in London in 2001 — comemmorating the 10th anniversary of Marriott's death — which featured a lineup of Frampton, Clempson, Ridley and Shirley. This performance was later released on DVD.
In October 2004, the song "Get Down To It," the opening track
from
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